Your Guide to National Debt

Mandatory spending

|Comments: 0

Spending that’s not dependent on an annual or multiyear appropriations bill. Most mandatory spending is associated with such entitlement programs as Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. Other forms of mandatory spending — salaries of federal judges, for example — account for a relatively small share of federal spending.

Mandatory spending in fiscal 2010 was $1.91 trillion, or about 55 percent of total federal spending. Most of this was for Social Security ($701 billion), Medicare ($520 billion), Medicaid ($273 billion) and unemployment insurance ($159 billion).

In the next 24 hours, you will receive an email to confirm your subscription to receive emails
related to AARP volunteering. Once you confirm that subscription, you will regularly
receive communications related to AARP volunteering. In the meantime, please feel free
to search for ways to make a difference in your community at
www.aarp.org/volunteer